Cloud computing is moving away from being monolithic, where Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the only major cloud service provider, to a marketplace technology, with several cloud-based service providers, as users’ appetite for cloud grows, according to analyst firm 451 Research.

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“It has taken a few years, but 2012 is the year we have seen some big difference, most of it driven by Openstack providers such as Rackspace,” said Simon Robinson, research vice-president of 451 Research, at the SNW Europe 2012 conference in Frankfurt.

Such a competitive market is good for enterprise users, who will see the cost of cloud services go down, he said.

“In addition to pricing benefits, having more players will bring more cloud federation, standardisation and interoperability,” said Robinson.

“As an analogy, Amazon is the Coke of the cloud industry. We don’t have a Pepsi yet, but there are several brands of cola available in the market,” said Robinson.

But an increasing number of enterprises are using Microsoft, Google, EMC, Verizon and Rackspace cloud services.

Cloud adoption gathering speed

According to Robinson, several factors have contributed to cloud becoming a marketplace technology. Tighter IT budgets and the need to innovate and compete has seen enterprises consider private and hybrid clouds, as well as look at open source providers, he said.

“Cloud has become the new normal. Our research has showed an evolution among enterprises’ attitude to cloud computing,” said Robinson.

According to the analyst firm, there is a clear rise in the number of enterprises using some form of cloud computing services.

More and more enterprises are considering whether the applications they are planning to buy now can be deployed in the cloud before purchasing them, said Robinson. They are also telling suppliers to bring out products on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model so they can save on capital expenditure.

“The cloud model they are exploring is not just the Amazon-centric model of web apps. They are willing to go down the route of hybrid and private cloud, making room for more service providers,” he added.

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